Got Milk?
by tielan
Summary: This is not merely the satiating of hunger, but a ritual of intimacy and reflection.


**NOTES**: Written to someone's challenge: "double stuf oreos"

**Got Milk?**

The froth of milk along the top of his lip is an unusual look on John, but Teyla finds she likes it.

"The only way to eat Double Stuf Oreos," John says with a grin. "With a glass of milk." He runs his tongue along the top of his lip to clean it, although not far enough to get all the milk that lies there. Even in the low lighting of the 'snack' kitchen, Teyla can still see the line of white. "I wish Sam had been able to get the peanut butter ones, though."

"Perhaps you should put in an order next time?"

"I might have to." John pulls his Oreo apart and proceeds to lick off the icing from the cookie base. He will dip the base it in the milk and eat it only once he has finished every bit of icing from the cookie.

Teyla has tried that style of eating Oreos before, which she thinks is not entirely unlike the Tim Tam Suck taught to her by Sergeant Reynolds of 'Scroungers 'R Us' - more formally known as the Atlantis Quartermaster's Division. Her own method of eating Oreos is to nibble her way around the edges of the cookie, taking small bites of cookie and icing with a gulp of milk, to savour the snack.

"It's ironic, you know." John contemplates the two cookies left sitting on the plate in the middle of the 'munching bench' - the table setting in the middle of the common kitchen. "On Earth - well, at least in America, the Oreos are the important thing. Not hard to get, but...they're the thing that everyone wants. Here in Pegasus, Oreos keep forever and can be shipped by the pallet - it's milk that's the rarity."

Most Earth milk in Atlantis is the long-life stuff - there is some of what the expedition calls 'Pegasus milk', and occasionally, just after the _Daedalus_ has made landing, there is fresh milk from Earth.

Of course, the 'fresh' part is relative, as Rodney is informs everyone. But it is drinkable, and many will risk 'unsanitary practises' for the pleasure of a glass of milk.

"I hear that there will be apple pie with cream tomorrow." The city's menus are at their most varied for the seven days after the _Daedalus_ arrives, and Teyla is always intrigued by the cooking. She does not always enjoy it, but it is fascinating to try, to savour, to test the food.

"I'm looking forward to it." John grins behind the disc of his cookie before plunging it into the milk for a few seconds.

Teyla watches, amused and fascinated. She does not mind the Earth milk, although Ronon thinks it a foul and disgusting liquid, and refuses to drink any incarnation of it.

And so finds herself roped into these midnight snacking sessions with John. She does not object. There is something charming about the concept of 'milk and cookies', perhaps because it is more than merely the food or the act of eating, but the revelations and intimacy that the action initiates in John.

This is not merely a meal, but a social and mental ritual for him.

She is happy to adopt it.

Teyla finishes off her own cookie in nibbles and gulps down the last of her milk before watching John drink down his.

When he sets the glass on the table, the milk-lip is there, whitely pronounced against even his pale skin. "What?" He asks, faintly challenging.

Teyla begins to lift a finger to indicate what he knows perfectly well - the gleam of boyish laughter in his eyes says so - then changes her mind.

Insanity. Yet she acts all the same.

John doesn't recoil as she leans over. When her mouth slides along the rough surface of his upper lip, she can see his lashes in the corner of her eye, low on his cheeks as he angles his face up a little, so his nose shouldn't be in the way.

The sigh of his breath whispers over her lips as she reaches the corner of his mouth, and her spine tingles, fragile desire.

Not so fragile, it seems.

Teyla has a moment to lift her mouth from his - a moment in which to take half a breath - before John's hand wraps around the back of her neck and pulls her back down.

Her stomach drops out from beneath her, so do her knees.

Teyla feels it like the first tingle of a coming storm when the lightning is striking the trees above and she is running the trails below. Desire flows through her like hot tea on a cold morning, or a small sip of Mira's _balish_ spirits after a long day, which Halling says is rather like being punched in the gut by Kamil the smith, only much more pleasurable.

The one other time when he has kissed her - pushed back against the gym wall during his infection with the Iratus, he turned her muscles to water with the intensity of his demands. After she learned of his infection, she imagined it was that which caused the ferocity of reaction. John gave few cues of interest otherwise.

But this? This is nothing more than cookies and milk and John Sheppard himself.

John Sheppard kissing her.

Teyla's head spins.

Kissing John is a little like falling and a little like flying - exhilarating. It is like turning on the water in the shower and drowning in the entirety of the ocean - unexpected. It is like the breath of relief they take when they arrive back in the Gateroom of Atlantis and the wormhole shuts behind them, and Elizabeth greets them from the balcony...

When she lifts her mouth from his - when his hand eases and he allows her up - his own gaze is a little blurry as he blinks. His gaze flickers over to her, drops to her lips, diverts away.

"I...ah...I don't know where that came from."

Teyla is reminded of him staring at her, frowning. _I don't know what just happened._ But this time, he is quite aware of what he's done. His eyes are clear even if they cannot meet hers, and a flush rides high on his cheeks - a rosy betrayal of his calm.

"You had milk on your lip," she tells him. The 'straight answer', but not the answer to the question he was asking. "It was...tasty. And you are right."

"I am?"

"Yes." She lets him see her smile as she picks up the glasses to take to the dishwasher, leaving him the crumbs to clean off the table. "The only proper way to eat Oreos is with milk."

Behind her, she hears his satisfied breath.

- **fin** -


End file.
